


The Nervous Narrator

by graveExcitement (arachnids)



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 13:45:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13055178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arachnids/pseuds/graveExcitement
Summary: The Baudelaire children leave with the mysterious taxi driver who appeared at the Hotel Denouement, and find a guardian in the third of the Snicket siblings.





	The Nervous Narrator

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Regency](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Regency/gifts).



> ahhhh, i had so much fun writing this for you! seriously, i never knew 'til now how fun it is to write with lemony's narration. hope you enjoy it!

On that fateful night, outside the Hotel Denouement, after the tragic demise of Dewey Denouement, the Baudelaire children came to a fork in the road. A fork in the road is a metaphor for a deciding moment in one’s life, when one has to make a major decision between several options. In this specific case, the Baudelaire children had to choose between returning to the hotel, and fleeing. Violet favored the former, Klaus the latter, and Sunny was undecided. 

During their discussion about which fork to take, a tall, skinny man approached them, asked if they needed a taxi, and quoted a great American novelist. Klaus, who thought that taking a taxi away from the hotel would be very wise indeed, admitted that they did not have any money to pay the taxi driver with.

“You needn’t worry about money,” said the man, “not if you’re who I think you are.” He paused. “Are you?” he asked, softly. “Are you who I think you are?”

Violet looked at Klaus. Sunny looked at Violet. Klaus looked at the man and firmly said, “Yes.”

Violet inhaled sharply at Klaus’ admission. Klaus whispered, “This may be our only chance to run before it’s too late.” Still, Violet and Sunny hesitated.

“Baudelaires?” a voice called in the distance, the raspy tones of Mr. Poe.

Violet’s expression grew firm. “Let’s go,” she said, and the man led the three of them to the safety of the taxi. There was a musical instrument lying on the back seat, but the man told them that it could lie in the footwell as long as they were careful, and so soon they were all seated: the man in the driver’s seat, Violet in the left side of the long back seat, Klaus on the right, Sunny in the middle, and a small, very important item in the front passenger seat.

I have no idea if the Baudelaires would have prevailed, had they returned to the hotel. Perhaps the hotel could have avoided its fiery fate; perhaps Count Olaf could have been brought to justice there. I have no way of knowing whether the Baudelaires were truly better off going with the taxi driver, or if they would have been better off staying. As it is, I can only tell you of the events that did happen, as the results of their choice.

"Where would you like to go?"

The question hung in the air like smoke. Finally Klaus said, quiet, "Somewhere safe, ideally. But the Hotel Denouement was supposed to be the last safe place, so if we leave it, where else is safe to go?"

When you have gone from home to home, place to place, seeking safe harbor and having it continually pulled out of your reach, an ache develops in your chest, an ache that grows until it becomes permanent. I have felt this ache myself, and to find the accompanying despair in the eyes of these three children makes me want to weep. 

After taking a long, long moment to compose himself, the mysterious taxi driver answered, “I cannot provide you with a bastion of safety. But I do have in my arsenal of destinations a series of temporary safe places. Not a one of them is as safe as this hotel once was. But for a time… they might serve.”

“That… still sounds safer than going back there,” Klaus said.

Violet hesitated. “It does, but… are we sure? Running away like this…”

“We weren’t doing anything good there,” said Klaus. “Even when we thought things might take a turn for the better, Dewey…” He shook his head. “Things are only going to get worse there. And for once, I think we should leave before it gets worse.”

“Harpoon,” Sunny said in agreement.

Violet nodded. “All right then.” To the taxi driver, she said, “Even a temporarily safe place would be welcome.”

In response, the taxi driver turned his key and started up the taxi. And here is where I should stop attempting a pretense of remove from this scene, for I was that taxi driver, having found the Baudelaire children at long last.

“You will want to alter your appearances,” I told the children as I pulled the taxi out onto the street proper. “For now, this is simply one of many taxis, which no one will give a second glance. But when they realize what’s missing -” here I referred both to the children themselves and to the porcelain item resting in the passenger seat - “they will afford us more scrutiny. There should be a disguise kit hidden under the back left seat.”

Violet reached under her seat and found that it was so. “Another disguise,” she murmured. I surmised from this that she was tired of constantly hiding her identity, an activity which I know from experience can be taxing on one’s mind, especially if you are attempting to disguise yourself as a group of trained chameleons.

Klaus appeared to agree. “It used to be that the villains were always the ones in disguise, and we had to unmask them. These days it’s the other way around.”

I said, “I was taught that disguises are a tool, and like any other tool, can be used in the hands of those aiming to do good or do ill.”

“Villains,” said Sunny. I gathered she meant something along the lines of, “Then why has this ‘tool’ been predominantly used by the villains in our lives?”

There are many potential answers to Sunny’s question. One is that the best spies are the ones who are never unmasked, and whose actions are never noticed. So it may be that those who disguise themselves for good ends are unlikely to commit such acts of greed and villainy that would get them noticed and revealed. But the question that would follow that answer is, “What about noticeable heroic acts?” and for that I would have no reply.

So I gave another explanation. “After bearing witness to villains setting fires, burning books and information, tarnishing and warping the truth, many of those who desired to fight fires found that deceit left a sour taste in their mouths.” Certainly this may serve to explain some of the inactivity of some of the Baudelaires’ erstwhile guardians. It has always struck me as unfair that good people, when confronted with hardship, cruelty, and books in a series being shelved in the wrong order, are liable to fall into despair, while villains confronted with these same things can brush them aside with a laugh. 

“You say that,” said Klaus, “but our parents didn’t tell us anything about VFD, or about the schism, or the sugar bowl. They kept lots of secrets.”

“Your parents…” I wanted to close my eyes just then, in pain and remembrance, but I was driving, and one should, never, ever take one’s eyes off the road for even a short span of time, even when one is suddenly reminded of crushing heartbreak and utter despair. “From what I knew of your parents, they likely had their reasons,” I said, “which I am sure you will want to discuss at length, but you really ought to assemble your disguises while we still have time.”

“We can multitask,” Violet said, mulish. “Whenever we’re told we can talk about something later, later never comes. So while we figure out disguises, you explain what you meant, just now.”

“I cannot profess to be certain,” I said, adjusting my rearview mirror both so I could check on the children and to check if we were being followed, “but I would speculate that your parents, knowing that the truth of this world is often quite frightening, wished to preserve your innocence and happiness rather than expose you to terrors you had yet to learn existed. I know that B-” My breath caught in my throat. “-That _Beatrice_ disapproved of the common volunteer practice of training children from a very young age… She likely did not want to begin until you were older, less vulnerable to this world’s cruelty.”

“How did you know our parents?” Klaus asked.

At the same time, Sunny said, “Identify,” meaning, “Just who exactly are you?”

I chose to answer the latter question and, cowardly, pretended I had not heard the former. To pretend you have not heard someone is very rude, but it becomes slightly less rude if you can plausibly claim it is true, such as when two people speak at once. “My name is Lemony Snicket.”

“Then you must know Kit Snicket!” Violet exclaimed.

“And Jacques,” Klaus murmured, adjusting a wig.

“That is correct,” I replied. “They… are my siblings.”

My hesitation was due to a quirk of English grammar and custom. It is customary to refer to the deceased in the past tense; for instance, “Jacques Snicket was my dearly beloved brother.” It is, of course, not appropriate to refer to _living_ people this way, unless your connection to them is also solely in the past. So, “he was my friend” could mean either “he was my friend, and now he’s dead,” or “he was my friend, but a violent, fiery disaster happened, and now we stand on opposite sides of a schism and are no longer friends.” 

But familial relations rarely end in ways that do not involve death. So saying “she was my sister” leads the listener to believe that the sister is dead. This led to my grammatical conundrum. I had already started my sentence with the word “they,” so I was speaking of both siblings. If I said, “They are my siblings,” it would imply that both were alive, even though I knew one to be dead. But if I said “They were my siblings,” it would imply both were dead, and no doubt cause the Baudelaires some distress. So I said, “They are my siblings,” and spent the next minute or so trying to avoid thinking about my murdered brother by thinking about grammar, a coping mechanism I had learned from Josephine Anwhistle.

“About Jacques -” Klaus began, hesitantly.

“I know,” I said, not unkindly. In an incredibly transparent attempt to change the subject, I asked, “Are your disguises ready? We will arrive shortly.”

“I’ll be an old woman,” said Violet, in the stereotypical creaky voice of an elderly woman. I glanced at her in the rearview mirror and noted with approval that she had given herself the appearance of wrinkles, as well as a widow’s veil, to further obscure her face.

“And I’ll be… her granddaughter,” said Klaus. He had picked a wig with dirty blonde hair that reached his shoulders. “They’ll be looking for a girl, a boy, and a baby, so two women should throw them off.”

“Purse,” said Sunny, announcing her intention to hide in the oversize handbag that sat in Violet’s lap.

“Names?” I asked. It is always best, when disguising oneself, to prepare names ahead of time, so that one is not caught off-guard by a request to identify oneself. When one is caught off-guard in this manner, one often has to scramble for a name, and may end up transparently using the objects around oneself for inspiration, or worse, a poor alteration of one’s actual name, which I learned as a child when I, panicking, introduced myself as Limey Thicket. 

“Mabel… Morrison,” said Violet.

“Lily Morrison,” said Klaus.

“Purse,” said Sunny.

I pulled over to the curb, then turned and handed Violet my spare key. “Apartment 313,” I tell her. “If anyone asks, you’re visiting your estranged son.”

“What about you?” Klaus blurted out.

I hesitated. “I need to dispose of the taxi,” I said, not untruthfully.

“Right,” he said. “Of course.” 

Sunny climbed into Violet’s purse, and the three of them exited the cab and set about locating the apartment.

I pulled back onto the street. I needed to abandon the taxi, of course, preferably somewhere not terribly close to the hotel, and I also needed to release the woman huddled in the trunk. But those were not my only concerns.

I glanced down to my right for a brief instant, reassuring myself that the sugar bowl was still present. Then I fixed my eyes on the road, as befitting of a responsible taxi driver. For a moment I permitted myself to remember a pair of boys I’d known in my youth who had made their living as a taxi driver; being too short for either to drive on their own, one of them would steer and the other would crouch in the footwell and operate the pedals. Strictly speaking, this is not a safe way to drive, and to ease my conscience I must impress on you, dear readers, that this is in no way legal or at all advisable… but I have fond memories of that taxi, nonetheless.

But I could not let myself get lost in memories, not when I had such a significant item in my possession and a dilemma on my hands.

My primary objective when I arrived at the Hotel Denouement, you see, was not to retrieve the Baudelaire orphans, but to retrieve the sugar bowl. Meeting the children outside the hotel and retrieving them as well was not a circumstance I had prepared for. And as long as I had both the sugar bowl and the Baudelaires with me, the presence of each made the other more likely to be discovered. For the Baudelaires to fall once more into villainous hands would be terrible; for the sugar bowl to do so would be disastrous. And both at once… I shuddered, gripping the steering wheel tightly. 

Cold logic dictated that keeping the Baudelaire children and the sugar bowl in the same place would be terribly unwise. Having installed the children at a temporarily safe location, what I _ought_ to do was take the sugar bowl and disappear, as I had some talent for doing. Even returning to the apartment to check in on the children was a risk I should not take, as it was an unnecessary point of connection that increased the risk that someone looking for the Baudelaires would find the sugar bowl, and vice versa. I could instruct the volunteer hiding in the trunk to go to the specified apartment and do what she could to shelter the Baudelaire children, while I left with the precious sugar bowl.

However, I had also spent quite some time following the Baudelaires’ trail and puzzling out the unfortunate events that followed them wherever they went. To turn away now, and leave them to the mercy of the world with only token efforts to secure their safety, would be quite simply, wrong. In the course of my time as a volunteer, I had done more than a few things that would be considered wrong - that _I_ considered wrong - but this felt even worse than the rest of them. It felt, above everything else, cowardly. This was fitting, as I was - am - a cowardly man, but it felt shameful to add this cowardly act to all the rest.

And there was one other thing. When I had told the children I needed to dispose of the taxi, Klaus had replied, “Right. Of course.” These words, written here on this page, do not look significant. But the way he said them... His tone of voice was completely, utterly flat. It was clear as anything to me from those words that he did not expect me to return, but he did not even sound disappointed. Only jaded.

Guardian after guardian of these children, people who meant to protect them and people who meant to inform them, have either been taken from them, failed them, or willingly abandoned them. Little wonder they did not expect me to be able to shelter them, or to be willing to attempt to do so instead of running away from the misfortune that shadowed them. That flat acceptance of this gloomy state of affairs hurt my heart to hear in Klaus’ voice. I wanted badly to show the children that they were not yet alone in this world, that there were still people they could rely on instead of only people that hunted them, failed them, or abandoned them.

But I had the sugar bowl with me, and the only person left whom I could trust to give it to was away at sea. Even the volunteer in the trunk could not be trusted with this item, and to be honest, I was loathe to trust her with the children, as well, for many noble, well-meaning volunteers had failed them despite their nobleness. Thus, my dilemma. 

* * *

When I let myself into the apartment, having concealed the sugar bowl in a secret compartment of the carrying case for the musical instrument I’d brought with me, I found the children inspecting the few possessions I’d left in this particular place.

Klaus was the first to notice me. “Oh! You’re - back,” he said, no doubt surprised to see me again.

“Indeed,” I said, locking the door behind me. The apartment was tiny, and rather bare, which is perhaps to be expected of a place I do not spend much time in. There was a small living room, a smaller kitchen, and an adjoining bedroom and bathroom. There was not a proper balcony, but the window on the east wall did open, and I had mentally marked it as a point of egress in an emergency. I made my way over to the couch, sinking down into its embrace and setting the carrying case down at my feet.

Much has been said about the benefits of rest and relaxation. To unwind after a long day’s work is one of life’s great joys, both in a physical sense and a mental sense. Physically, letting one’s body rest after days on end of hiding in cramped spaces and climbing out of windows is quite beneficial for one’s body. Mentally, letting go of the worries and anxieties that plague one when conducting a secret investigation into the deeds of fire-starters and other villains is very beneficial for one’s mental health. However, while I had the chance to physically rest just then, I was not mentally relaxed, nor had I been in a long, long time. 

It was quite late at night; it had already been late when I had picked up the children from outside the Hotel Denouement, and it had taken some more time to arrive here, and then yet more time for me to drop off the volunteer hiding in the trunk, abandon the taxi, and make my way back here. I could tell that the children were quite tired, but instead of heading for the bedroom or inquiring about sleeping arrangements, Violet sat on the other end of the couch, Sunny sitting in her lap, while Klaus sat cross-legged on the floor in front of us and opened his commonplace notebook. 

“I know it’s late,” said Klaus, “but we have a great number of questions, and if things go as they usually do, then we won’t have much time here before they catch up with us and we have to run again.”

“Especially since they think we’re murderers again,” said Violet.

I recalled what Violet had said before: ‘later never comes.’ They wanted answers from me before disaster struck again and we were separated, or worse.

“Ask,” I said, tired. “I will answer what I can.”

The Baudelaires looked at each other, surprised. Perhaps they had expected me to refuse, on account of the late hour. Then Klaus looked up at me, and clicked his pen in preparation. “How did you know our parents?” he asked, repeating his question from the taxi.

“We volunteered together,” I said. “I was good friends with your mother, once. And your father was a fine, upstanding volunteer as well.”

“You were friends with Mother ‘once?’” asked Klaus, who had picked up on that particular grammatical ambiguity. “Do you mean that your friendship with her ended beforehand, or that you were friends up until…”

This was a question with a complicated, and very painful, answer. “Due to an unfortunate turn of events before Violet was born, your parents had reason to think me dead,” I finally said. “They never learned otherwise. But my opinion of them never lessened.” 

The children digested this. Sunny spoke up next. “Sugar bowl,” she said.

“That’s right,” said Klaus, rapidly flipping pages in his notebook. “Why is the sugar bowl so important? What’s inside?”

The Baudelaires’ parents were a sore subject for me, an aching wound that had never healed. But the sugar bowl and what it held was an even more fraught subject. “That,” I said wearily, “I cannot answer.”

Klaus scowled. “We deserve to know. After everything we’ve done, after all the fighting we’ve seen over it -”

“Dewey,” Sunny whispered. All three Baudelaires winced.

“Everyone seems to know what’s inside but us,” Violet continued. “What could be inside that’s worth killing over?”

“You’re better off not knowing,” I said, and raised my hand to silence them when they started to argue back. “As long as you remain ignorant of what it contains, you _won’t_ find it worth killing over. Or dying over. But once you know, that knowledge cannot be taken back, and you will value it just as much as everyone else. I will answer your other questions, but not this one.”

“We don’t even know where it _is,_ ” said Violet, forlornly. “It was supposed to be delivered by crows to the hotel, but we left before we could find out if it fell into the hands of volunteers or villains.”

That, at least, I could answer. “Before I left the hotel with you three, I ensured it was safely in the possession of a volunteer.”

“You did?” Sunny exclaimed, incredulous.

“It is safe, for now,” I said, fighting the amateurish impulse to look at my feet.

“All right,” Klaus said, reluctantly. “What -” He broke off in an involuntary yawn. 

“Rest?” asked Sunny.

He shook his head, stubborn. “I still have more questions,” he insisted.

“But we won’t be able to do anything tomorrow if we’re all exhausted,” Violet said. “Our most important questions were answered, weren’t they? Or - not answered exactly, in one case, but...”

Klaus sighed. “One more question,” he said. “How long will we be safe here?”

His weary, disillusioned voice told me that he didn’t think it would be very long. “It could be anywhere from a few days to a few weeks,” I admitted. 

“But we’ll be safe here tonight?” asked Violet.

I nodded. “You three take the bed. I’ll sleep on the couch.” 

There was a long moment in which no one moved, or said anything. Then Violet spoke again. “I just realized we never thanked you,” she said. “So, thank you for hiding us here, even though it puts you at risk, too.”

Klaus nodded. “Even if it doesn’t last very long, temporary safety is still better than none at all. And..." He hesitated. "Thanks for coming back."

“Thanks,” said Sunny.

I closed my eyes, fighting back tears. After everything, after fire and tragedy and horror and dire inconvenience, I had found Beatrice’s children, and they were thanking me for the most meager protection I could offer them. They should have been growing up in a happy family with two wonderful parents who loved them, and all they had was me, the last in a chain of ill-fitting, ignorant, cowardly, and cruel guardians. I was certainly not fit to guard anyone, but I was all they had.

I felt a small hand on my cheek, and opened my eyes to find that Sunny had crawled across the couch to me. “Crying,” she said.

So I was. “I’ll protect you three for as long as I can,” I said, knowing full well that this might not end up being very long at all.

“Thank you,” Violet whispered again, and Sunny wrapped her little arms around me the best she could, and I was overwhelmed by terror that I would fail these children like so many of their previous guardians had failed them.

But it was exceedingly late, so I reached up to wipe the tears from my eyes and said, “We should rest while we can.”

Violet nodded and stood up from the couch, and Klaus stood as well, making his way to the bedroom and its rather small bed. Sunny didn’t move, however, and I discovered after some inspection that she had already fallen asleep.

“Sorry about that,” said Violet, but I shook my head. 

“It’s no trouble,” I said, and, slowly, shifted my positioning so that I was lying on my back on the couch, with Sunny sleeping soundly on my chest. 

“If you’re sure,” she said. “Good night, Mr. Snicket.”

I closed my eyes in pain and remembrance. “Good night.” But the slow breaths of the child sleeping atop me, quite remarkably, soothed my painful memories and deep-seated anxieties, and I found myself falling into a peaceful sleep, for the first night in a long while.


End file.
